Dashed Hopes

Despite widespread optimism among libertarians, classical liberals, non-interventionists, progressive peaceniks and everybody else opposed to the US Empire that some of its murderous reins may finally be pulled in with the election of Donald Trump, it appears that these hopes have now been dashed.

Liberty… some of it is still above water, but definitely not as much as there could or should be.*

While the hope for a less meddlesome US foreign policy is not completely extinguished and would never have existed had the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua been elected, so far a number of President Trump’s foreign policy actions have been little different from those of his recent predecessors.

Always keep in mind that it ultimately does not matter whether one likes or dislikes Donald Trump, or whether he fulfills anyone’s expectations (naturally, he is fair game for criticism – we want to emphasize something else here). The moment the Democrats decided to nominate the Wicked Witch of Chappaqua as their presidential candidate, citizens with an IQ above room temperature and a healthy survival instinct simply no longer had a choice. If the Republicans had nominated a string-operated talking rag doll, it would still have been every American’s sacred duty to elect it.**

President Trump’s biggest blunder was to acquiesce to the Deep State’s coup against General Michael Flynn, the most Russia-friendly person in Trump’s foreign policy entourage.

Since Flynn’s abrupt departure, there has been little talk of a rapprochement with Russia. Instead there has been continued saber rattling by the warmongers whom Trump has, unfortunately, chosen to surround himself with.

The most recent Russia-badgering has come from Secretary of Defense, James “Mad Dog” Mattis who wrongly accused it of “bad behavior”:

“Russia’s violations of international law are now a matter of record from what happened with Crimea to other aspects of their behavior in mucking around other people’s elections and that sort of thing.”***

Of course, the US has never tried to influence the outcomes of elections or “mucked around” in the affairs of sovereign countries, heaven forbid!

While candidate Trump correctly spoke of the Iraq War as a disaster and US Middle Eastern policy as a failure, he has done little to alter course in the region. In some instances he has even escalated tensions. A few ominous examples:

Bombing raids of Mosul killing over 200 civilians

The deployment of another 1,000 ground troops to Syria

Additional US ground troops “expected” to be deployed to Afghanistan

Continuous threats to Iran – which is “put on notice”

Whip out a magnifying glass and you will immediately realize that the terrible and vast danger posed by axis of weevil member Iran cannot possibly be overemphasized… if you are not quaking in your boots and/or hiding under your desk after contemplating this scary chart, you are fearless enough to apply for a job with the Green Lantern corps! Mail your CV to Oa!

In the Far East, President Trump has done little to alleviate hostilities. In a belligerent March tweet during Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson’s trip to the region, he wrote:

“North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help.”****

A number of perceptive commentators think otherwise and have shown that it has been the US that has acted disingenuously over the years. As Finian Cunningham points out:

“Despite Western media demonization of North Korea as some kind of crazy rogue state, the people there are not fools. They know from family histories the atrocious cost of American war. And they know that any nation perceived as weak by Washington will be bombed back to the Stone Age.”*****

And lettuce not forget about North Korea’s mighty and terrifying navy… you can see more secret pictures of the hermit kingdom’s dangerous high tech military equipment here (be very, very careful if you scare easily!)

Photo credit: KCNA / EPA

Costly Escalation and a Silver Lining

These trends, and the President’s unnecessary request for increased “defense spending,” all point to more of the same for US overseas relations. In fact, there will most likely be continued military escalation if the likes of General “Mad Dog” Mattis get their way.

It is now apparent that the only way in which significant change will come about in American foreign affairs will be if there is a severe financial crisis which impairs the nation enough so that it can no longer bankroll its military adventurism. History has a number of examples of this.

Great Britain, which the US Empire is largely patterned after, lost its empire when it became financially exhausted, in large part due to its insane decision to enter the two World Wars of the past century.

Fighting in those conflagrations drained Britain of its wealth and devastated it demographically – from which it, and the rest of Europe, have never recovered.

The US is heading down a similar path of decline, as it has squandered its wealth and treasure in the maintenance of an overseas empire, while it has expanded its welfare state at home – meaning there is less wealth which can be tapped from an increasingly unproductive and parasitic populace.

Couple this with an onerous tax burden, an inflationist monetary policy which has destroyed the purchasing power of the dollar, and a gargantuan public debt and you have primed the country for a financial cataclysm.

Despite the dramatic fall in the standard of living and the immense social strife and unrest that an economic collapse would bring about, there is a silver lining.

Like Great Britain before it, a financial crisis and/or the loss of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency would force the US to abandon its overseas empire – closing bases, bringing troops home, and stopping intervention in the myriad of arenas across the planet.

A defunct US Empire would also be bad news and mean grisly retribution for all those lackeys and puppets who have been supported and propped up by American might: another positive aspect to the end of the Empire.

Miniature of meeting with valued ally (i.e., lackey) – insets show administration of justice in valued ally’s home base. It’s all in good fun… well, not for everybody, obviously. One imagines that a number of people over there are not overly happy with their rulers and some of them probably do occasionally harbor thoughts of retribution.******

Photo credit: Carolyn Kaster / AP

The collapse will mean America, too, will face reprisals from all those who have suffered under its hegemony. The payback will come from both economic warfare as the US has used through its “Dollar Diplomacy” to control and manipulate foreign economies and by some sort of military humiliation.

The impact of an economic collapse could be mitigated somewhat if the US abandoned its role as global policeman as resources squandered abroad would then become available for the rebuilding of the domestic economy while, at the same time, hostility with America’s adversaries would be reduced.

Conclusion – Get Rid of the Warmongers!

Unless President Trump replaces the warmongers and interventionists which he has unwisely surrounded himself with and returns to his wildly popular campaign promise of an American First foreign policy, the US Empire will remain the greatest threat to world peace that currently exists.

If things continue as such, it will only be through the comeuppance of Economic Mother Nature when She bursts the American bubble economy so that the Empire upon which it rests will, at long last, come to a fitting and much needed end!

Notes and References:

* A side note: Lady Liberty’s nose is about 280 feet above sea level. An extremely slow rise in sea levels has been underway due to the mild warming trend in the global climate since the horrible “Little Ice Age” ended in 1715 (it would have been an absolutely terrible tragedy for human civilization if the cooling trend had continued). At the current annual rate (which has been perfectly steady since the beginning of reliable measurements in 1860), it would take 30,810 years and 10 months for “climate change” to bring water levels up to Lady Liberty’s nose – which of course means it will never happen (we leave it to readers to guess why). [PT]

** This should definitely not be taken as a partisan comment. For instance, although it meant they were forced to elect the bland and insufferable Barrack Obama, voters faced quite a similar problem in 2008 – the mentally unstable warmonger John McCain had to be kept from the presidency. It is bad enough that he has any political power at all. Just imagine the Ukraine coup and its aftermath with John McCain as president of the US – quite likely it would have spun out of control in the worst ways imaginable. Similarly, if you can stomach it, try to contemplate Hillary for a moment, nuclear football well within grabbing distance, in one of her famous unpredictableviolent moods, sitting at her computer after an evening of overindulging in alcoholic beverages and googling for news about Putin… and then coming across this… or this. We are exaggerating for color of course, but the point remains that her unstable passive-aggressive personality, her drinking problem and her unhealthy obsession with Russia and Putin were simply too explosive a mixture – the world could not afford to take such a risk. [PT]

****** Crimes for which one can be publicly executed in valued ally’s home base include such evergreens as: sorcery, blasphemy, atheism, apostasy, adultery, fornication, sodomy (both active and passive), homosexuality, idolatry, witchcraft, “Waging war on God”, sexual misconduct, treason (this includes saying things about valued ally’s leaders they don’t like – citizens are advised to refrain from insulting the kindly uncle sharing jokes with Messrs. Obama and Bush above) and theft (luckily for thieves, loss of head only occurs on the fourth conviction. Previous convictions only lead to sudden loss of other limbs). Not all of these crimes invite death by beheading. Hanging and stoning are offered as alternatives in certain cases (adultery calls for stoning, for instance). We’re not quite sure how sorcerers and witches are identified beyond a reasonable doubt, but clearly the judiciary of valued ally’s home base is able to do it – if memory serves, an alleged sorcerer was last executed just a year or two ago. It’s understandable though – after all, who wants to have sorcerers and witches running around in their country? [PT]

Chart by: Outside the Beltway

Chart and image captions by PT

Antonius Aquinas is an author, lecturer, a contributor to Acting Man, SGT Report, The Burning Platform, Dollar Collapse, The Daily Coin and Zero Hedge. Contact him at antoniusaquinas[at]gmail[dot]com https://antoniusaquinas.com/.

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2 Responses to “The American Empire and Economic Collapse”

One wonders, was it really two world wars that led to the decline of the British Empire? I think not upon a closer reading of history. The assumption that colonialism was a profitable venture is more myth than anything else. Short term profits and long term loses if one reads the economic history correctly. Mercantilism being the most divisive of economic policies, it is a wonder that Britain lasted as long as it did. So what of the US? Ah, can we say fiat money? Do you remember the scene in “Network” where Mr Jensen wanted to talk to Howard Beale? What was the talk about? Current accounts and the necessity to put the “money” back. Strangely enough, it was a foreshadowing of progressive political theory. Go back and listen to the dialogue. Network predicted reality television or reality video, little enough difference these days. But it also predicted identity politics and the result in economic theory.

Will America really be held to account by the rest of the world? Not really, follow the money. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

I’ve been thinking along the same lines now for some time. There will have to be a major recession or a depression to wipe the slate clean.

The American welfare/warfare state has been financed by the rest of the world thanks to the reserve currency status of the US$. The US has had large trade deficits with the rest of the world over many decades and the dollars that have been exported in return for goods have been used by foreign governments to purchase US Treasuries which their central banks use as risk free assets as foundations for their fractionally reserved banking systems. This bizarre process has had several effects:

– A relentless decline in interest rates over previous decades.
– A source of income that has helped to fund the rise of the monstrous military behemoth that “strides the world like a colossus”.
– A high standard of living without US citizens being totally responsible for paying for it all such that the US government and its citizens have been subsidised by the rest of the world. US socialists have a sound reason for thinking that there is such a thing as a free lunch.
– A decline in American manufacturing.

But it cannot last forever and those Treasuries will be put up for sale for real assets one day. And that’s when those chickens will get restless and come home to roost. Or as us Australians might say: those chickens are going to turn into emus and kick down your shithouse. We don’t know when that unhappy sequence of events will play out, but it will be somewhat dramatic when it happens.

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